R1B, Section 1: Reading & Composition: The Other and the Concept of the Celtic
4 units
MWF 3-4
106 Dwinelle
Instructor: Dara Hellman
This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement for the Bachelor’s Degree. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement must be taken for a letter grade.
What do we mean when we use the term “Celtic?” All texts in this course address the question, offering sometimes unpredictably divergent conclusions. We will examine the differing depictions and discuss the boundaries and definitions of “the Other” in contemporary, medieval and renaissance contexts, with particular emphasis on those characteristics that define “the Celtic” in a selection of works by both insiders and outsiders to Celtic identities. The course is intended to provide an orientation to Celtic Studies and to work toward critical engagement with some enjoyable texts and college-level academic essay writing.
The goals of the class are 1) to improve students’ comprehension, enjoyment, analysis, and critical evaluation of different kinds of texts; 2) to build students’ management of longer and more sophisticated writing projects as well as their fluency as writers; and 3) to broaden students’ research skills, using both electronic and traditional media and emphasizing the evaluation of argument and literary evidence. Assignments will include one or two brief writing assignments per week, four formal papers, one of which will be part of a research project on a topic in Celtic Studies (not limited to literature); and an in-class presentation.
Texts:
Henry V by William Shakespeare
The Mabinogion by Jones and Jones
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (trans./ed. Tolkien)
Poetry by Yeats, Thomas and others, to be announced/assigned
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.
R1B, Section 2: Reading & Composition: Irish Drama in a Comparative Context
4 units
MWF 11-12
109 Dwinelle
Instructor: Thomas Walsh
This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement for the Bachelor’s Degree. Courses taken to fulfill this requirement must be taken for a letter grade.
The primary focus of this course is the improvement of your writing. Since R1B is an intensive college writing course, issues of development and style are presented at an advanced level. Further, students are to receive attention to their writing through detailed comments on their essays and through discussion in class and during office hours.
Your writing for this course will analyze and interpret significant dramatic and poetic texts from Ireland. We will read Irish dramatic texts alongside some Greek tragedies. Of importance to our reading are: 1.) the development of Irish drama in its historical context; 2.) the place of Irish drama as a response to Greek drama; and 3.) the dramatic artistry of the plays themselves. The course will examine the form and nature of drama and performance.
Required Texts:
Diane Hacker and Nancy Sommers. A Pocket Style Manual. 6th ed. Bedford/St. Martins. ISBN-10: 0-312-542542.
John P. Harrington, ed. Modern Irish Drama (Norton Critical Editions). 2nd ed. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. ISBN-978-0-393-93243-0.
Seamus Heaney. The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles’ Antigone. New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2004. ISBN-10: 0-374-11721-7.
—–. The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles’ Philoctetes. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1991. ISBN 0-374-52289-8.
Sophocles. Antigone. Trans. J. E. Thomas. Clayton, DE: Prestwick House, 2005. ISBN 978-1-58049-388-8.
Euripides. Medea. Trans. Rex Warner. Mineola, NY: Dover Thrift Editions, 1993. ISBN-13: 978-0486275482.
COURSE-READER: Prepared by the instructor, this text will be available during the first week of classes.
NOTE: Only the above editions and translations will be used in this course. Other editions and translations are not acceptable.
Prerequisite: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.
85: Intermediate Modern Irish
4 units
TuTh 3:30-5
283 Dwinelle
Instructor: Eddie Stack
A Continuation of Celtic Studies 15
A course for students with a basic knowledge of Irish. Students will learn intermediate Irish grammar, and develop the ability to understand, speak, read and write the language.
The course will emphasize Irish language conversation in class and
students will be introduced to everyday idioms and phrases. Students will also read simple poetry and prose. Music, song and video will be used to facilitate the learning process and set the language in a cultural context for students. Live Skype hook-up with native speakers in Ireland will be part of the class.
Texts:
There will be no prescribed text for this course. Text handouts from various Irish will be given in class. It is highly recommended that all students have an English/Irish dictionary, such as the Pocket Oxford Irish Dictionary. ISBN0-19-860254-5
Prerequisites: Completion of Celtic Studies 15; consent of instructor.
139: Irish Literature: 1800-Present
4 units
MWF 10-11
243 Dwinelle
Instructor: Dara Hellman
Taught in English with readings in English.
L&S Breadth: Arts & Literature
From the 17th century on, Ireland was a land of two primary spoken languages: Irish and English. Latin survived until the early 20th century as a written (and occasionally spoken) language of scholarly discussion, but it was almost never used during this period for literary or popular poetic texts. Although Irish was the language spoken by most Irish people until the middle of the 19th century and had a flourishing literary tradition (mainly poetic), there was little published in the language until the end of the 19th century. How much interpenetration was there between the two traditions? What sort of audiences existed for different kinds of literature? What was the Irish Literary Renaissance? What part did colonialism and nationalism play in the development of both language traditions in Ireland? All these questions will be addressed, if not answered to everyone’s satisfaction, in this course.
Required Reading: to be announced.
Prerequisites: None. Course and readings are in English.
146B: Medieval Welsh Language and Literature: Middle Welsh Texts and Manuscripts
4 units
TuTh 11-12:30
151 Barrows
Instructor: Annalee Rejhon
L&S Breadth: Arts & Literature
A selection of medieval Welsh prose and poetry will be read with a focus on King Arthur and on Middle Welsh translations of Anglo-Norman French works. These works will be examined in the context of the medieval Welsh manuscripts that preserve them. The course will provide an introduction to the nature and history of the corpus of extant medieval Welsh manuscripts and to methods for editing them as well as an examination of the cultural interface between Welsh and French traditions in medieval Britain.
In this regard selections will be read from Ystoria Bown de Hamtwn [The Tale of Boun de Hamtone] and from Cân Rolant, the Welsh version of the Song of Roland. The Arthurian texts will include selections from Culhwch and Olwen, the earliest Arthurian tale in the vernacular, Brut y Brenhinedd [History of the Kings], the Welsh version of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, the native Arthurian tale, Breudwyt Ronabwy [the Dream of Rhonabwy], the Welsh grail text Peredur, the counterpart of Chrétien de Troyes’ Old French Perceval, and the early Arthurian poems, “Pa gur” [What Man (the Gatekeeper)], and “Preiddeu Annwn” [Spoils of the Otherworld]. The latest critical treatments of these works in their cultural context will be covered in lectures. Texts will be read in Middle Welsh, both in edited and manuscript versions, the latter made available in a Reader from microfilm or online copies. In-class translations will normally form part of each class.
Course requirements include a midterm and final exam plus the preparation of a short transcription and edition of part of a manuscript of one of the texts read in class.
Prerequisites: Celtic St. 146A or permission of the instructor.
Texts:
Poppe, Erich and Regine Reck, eds. Selections from Ystorya Bown o Hamtwn. The Library of Medieval Welsh Literature. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2009. (ISBN: 978-0-7083-2171-3)
Rejhon, Annalee D., ed. and tr. Cân Rolant: The Medieval Welsh Version of the Song of Roland. University of California Publications in Modern Philology, 113. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984. (ISBN: 0-520-09997-4)
Bromwich, Rachel and D. Simon Evans, eds. Culhwch and Olwen: An Edition and Study of the Oldest Arthurian Tale. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992. (ISBN: 0-7083-1127-X)
Roberts, Brynley, ed. Brut y Brenhinedd. Mediaeval and Modern Welsh Series, 5. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1971.
Richards, Melville, ed. Breudwyt Ronabwy. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1948. (ISBN 0-7083-0270-X)
Goetinck, G., ed. Historia Peredur vab Efrawc. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1976. (ISBN 0-7083-0440-0)
Evans, J. Gwenogvryn, ed. Llyfr Gwyn Rhydderch. 2nd ed. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1977. (ISBN 0-7083-0523-7)
Evans, D. Simon. A Grammar of Middle Welsh. Mediaeval and Modern Welsh Series, suppl. vol. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976. (ISBN: 00-000-2972-6)
Evans, H. Meurig and W.O. Thomas. Y Geiriadur Mawr: The Complete Welsh-English English-Welsh Dictionary. Llandybïe, Dyfed: Christopher Davies and Gwasg Gomer, 1989. (ISBN 0-85088-462-4)
Davies, Sioned, tr. The Mabinogion. Oxford World’s Classics. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. (ISBN 978-0-19-921878-3)
173: Celtic Christianity
4 units
TuTh 2-3:30
215 Dwinelle
Instructor: Annalee Rejhon
L&S Breadth: Philosophy & Values OR Historical Studies
The course will examine the early reception and development of Christianity in Ireland and Britain. Particular attention will be paid to the role that insular pre-Christian Celtic religious systems played in this reception and the conversion to Christian belief. Lectures and primary works that will be read (complete or in extract) to elucidate this issue will be drawn from wisdom texts, secular and canon law texts, ecclesiastical legislation, penitentials and monastic rules, apocrypha, and lyric poetry. A selection of saints’ lives, both Irish and Welsh, with a French connection via St. Martin of Tours, will round out the course.
All texts will be available in English translation and the majority of them available in a Course Reader. These will include: the Irish wisdom text, Audacht Morainn [The Testimony of Moran]; Cáin Adamnáin [the law of Adomnan], Cáin Domnaig [the law of Sunday] and Cáin Darí [the law of Dari]; The Irish Penitentials, the “Monastery of Tallaght”; the “Martyrology of Oengus” and the Old Irish poems of Blathmac; The Voyage of St. Brendan; and extracts from the following saints’ lives: Adomnan’s Life of Columba, Muirchú’s Life of St. Patrick, Cogitosus’s Life of St. Brigid, Rhigyfarch’s Life of St. David, Lifris’s Life of St. Cadog, and Sulpicius’s Life of St. Martin.
Course requirements include a midterm and final examination.
No prerequisites, although a basic knowledge of Christianity is required.
Texts:
Reader: TBA
Kelly, Fergus, ed. & tr. Audacht Morainn. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1976.
O’Meara, John J. tr. The Voyage of St. Brendan. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1997.
Murphy, Gerard, tr. Early Irish Lyrics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.
198, Section 3: Directed Group Study — Writing Ireland: Emigration in Modern Writing in Irish
2 units
Tu 9-11
B29 Dwinelle
Instructor: Louis DePaor, National University of Ireland in Galway
This course will look at how the experience of migration is represented in Irish language writing in the twentieth century. It will consider how writers have dealt with the themes of exile and displacement within Ireland and internationally. Through a close reading of selected extracts from the Blasket autobiographies, and from the work of Pádraic Ó Conaire, Máirtín Ó Direáin, Máirtín Ó Cadhain, Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Domhnall Mac Amhlaigh, Micí Mac Gabhann, we will consider both the positive and negative aspects of twentieth-century emigration.
Core texts
Brown, Terence Ireland: a social and cultural history 1922-2002 (London: Harper Perennial 2004)
Cowley, Ultan The men who built Britain: a history of the Irish navvy (Dublin: Wolfhound Press 2001)
Moreton, Cole Hungry for home (New York: Viking 2000)
Mac Amhlaigh, Donall An Irish navy: the diary of an exile (Cork: Collins Press 2003)
MacGowan, Michael The hard road to Klondike (Cork: Collins Press 2003)
Core texts will be supplemented with critical and other weekly readings.
198, Section 5: Readings in Welsh
1 unit
Day/Time TBD
Instructor: Kathryn Klar
Watch this Space!
A Detailed Description is Forthcoming!
Comparative Literature 152: Medieval Literature, Topic TBA
4 units
MW 4-5:30
175 Dwinelle
Instructor: Annalee Rejhon
L&S Breadth: Arts & Literature
The course will present a survey of major works of medieval literature from some of the principal literary traditions of the Middle Ages, with an emphasis on epic and on Arthurian romance. The epics that will be examined are the assonanced Oxford version of the Song of Roland (with an extract from the rhymed Châteauroux/Venice 7 version) and Beowulf, as well as the Old Irish saga of the Táin; the romances are those of Chrétien de Troyes, along with Gottfied von Strassburg’s Tristan, Ulrich von Zatzikhoven’s Lanzelet, and the Middle English Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Included in the survey will be the Arthurian section of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the Kings of Britain, and several of the native tales and romances of the Middle Welsh Mabinogion. A selection of troubadour lyrics will round out the survey.
All texts will be available in English translation. Course requirements will include a midterm and a final examination.